The Ladder

THE BURLINGTON FREE PRESS, Burlington, Vermont, September 22, 1934

Homemade Extension Ladder

One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was a ladder that was found outside the Lindbergh home. Wood expert, Arthur Koehler, testified that the ladder was made of wood from a lumberyard in the Bronx, New York, not far from Hautpmann's home, and that one of the boards probably came from the attic in Hauptmann's house.

The Trialby Jen Bryant

Attic Board and Rail 16 Compared

The key evidence tying Hauptmann to the actual kidnapping was a section of attic floor board taken from Hauptmann's Bronx apartment that precisely matched the grain of wood used for "rail 16" of the ladder found left at the kidnap scene. Moreover, rail 16 had four rare square nail holes that matched the nails used in Hauptmann's attic. Several jurors said after the trial that wood evidence was the most significant in proving Hauptmann's guilt.

by Douglas Linder

The half board in the defendants attic that rail 16 supposedly came from had seven knots in it whereas rail 16 had only three knots. Moreover, the planed rail 16 was actually one-sixteenth of an inch THICKER than the unplaned attic board, making a match between the two extremely unlikely.

Insp. Lewis J. Bornmann of the New Jersey State Police discovered a missing rafter in Hauptmann's attic that corresponded to one of the uprights of the kidnap ladder. Koehler confirmed that the missing length of lumber matched, even to nail holes, the bottom section.

Arthur Koehler

Eventually, the ladder became a crucial item of evidence. Schwarzkopf enlisted the aid of wood experts, the most enterprising of whom was Arthur Koehler, of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. He had written Lindbergh and volunteered his services. From slivers sent to him, he was able to determine that the ladder was constructed from pine from North Carolina, Douglas fir from the West, birch, and Ponderosa pine. Remarkably, Koehler was able to trace some of the ladder lumber from a mill in South Carolina to a lumber dealer in the Bronx.

The ladder was both crudely and professionally constructed. Some of the joints and connections showed the work of a carpenter, while the pieces of wood that made up the ladder seemed to have been gathered from a variety of sources.

by Russell Aiudo

Lieutenant Lewis Bornmann, identified a ladder in the courtroom as the one he had discovered on the night of the kidnapping lying seventy-five feet from the Lindbergh home.